


the rubble or our sins

by jumpfall



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8349157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpfall/pseuds/jumpfall
Summary: Of the creature comforts Lucifer has discovered since washing ashore on the beaches of Los Angeles five years ago, he counts scotch among his favourites. He likes the weight of a glass tumbler, solid and grounding. He likes the way light filters through the amber liquid, the snapshot of LA nightlife visible from Lux’s balcony distanced and distorted through its lens. He likes the smooth finish of expensive scotches and the sharp burn of cheap ones. 
[Season 1 finale tag.]





	

Of the creature comforts Lucifer has discovered since washing ashore on the beaches of Los Angeles five years ago, he counts scotch among his favourites. He likes the weight of a glass tumbler, solid and grounding. He likes the way light filters through the amber liquid, the snapshot of LA nightlife visible from Lux’s balcony distanced and distorted through its lens. He likes the smooth finish of expensive scotches and the sharp burn of cheap ones.

Amenadiel is the one with the power to slow time but this does the trick nearly as well. For a being that measures time in centuries and millennia, scaling down has proven challenging. He has come to appreciate that humans accommodate the brevity of their lives by going about them at breakneck speed. The alcohol doesn’t stop that but it does hit the pause button long enough for him to process recent events: the innocents killed in his name, the last tangibility of his divinity gone, the bargain he made.

“Lucifer?”

Ah and there’s the detective now, right on cue. He turns to see Chloe hovering in the doorway, never one to make herself at home without an express invitation. What’s his is hers in the same way it is Mazekeen’s, is Linda’s, is the Brittanies’: the indulgences he has sequestered in his home-away-from-Hell are meant to be freely shared with those who pass through those doors, a master class in the art of desire and the pleasures of fulfilling it. He has yet to figure out if she simply doesn’t understand that or intentionally chooses not to, but that is a topic for another day.

“Detective. What can I do for you this evening?”

“Aren’t you cold?” she asks. There’s a note of tension to her voice he can’t quite place. Her hand normally rests over the holster on her hip when she has a concern about a situation but when she steps closer to him, her palms are open and facing him.

“I find it refreshing,” he says. “Just needed a little fresh air.” He pulls back from the railing to face her fully, tumbler held loosely at his side. She seems to relax as he gets further from the edge and so he follows her inside, stopping briefly at the newly-rebuilt bar to refill his glass.

“We need to talk,” she says.

Lucifer considers the matter for a second before pouring a second and sliding it towards her. “And what would you call this?” he asks. “An advanced exercise in ventriloquism?”

“They finished processing the crime scene,” she says instead.

“I didn’t realize we had a new case.”

“From Malcolm’s death.”

“Ah,” he says, taking a seat at the piano. He thinks of Rose Davis, who Malcolm killed in his name: rebellious and misguided, but ultimately innocent. She did not do anything deserving of punishment – at nineteen years of age, she did not _live_ long enough to do anything deserving of punishment. He thinks of Mike Carry, strung up on a cross as if the symbolism of such a display were trivial rather than loaded. He thinks of Chloe Decker, offering her life in exchange for that of her daughter’s. His fingers tighten on his glass.

“The ME said the blood loss was fatal.”

“I should certainly hope so,” he says, eyes clouding over with the steady, sustained burn of Hellfire itself. The quick death Malcom received is nothing compared to that which awaits him in the seventh circle. In a way, he admires humans for their ability to resist temptation: knowledge of the punishment that awaits Malcolm pales in comparison to the desire to mete it out himself.

“Not Malcolm’s. Yours,” she says.

_Right_ , he thinks. _That little matter._ The wound healed without so much as a scar: the skin smooth and unblemished, the muscle knit back together strong as ever, the lead projectile left behind in Hell itself. Good as new, except for the sharp pain in his abdomen when he remembers the act: blood bubbling up through his mouth, the trembling in his limbs, cold leaching into his body accompanying the onset of shock.

“You said he killed you,” Chloe says. “And I thought he had.”

“He did,” Lucifer agrees.

He can see she wants to press the matter further and prepares himself for another round of explaining his true nature in the face of her disbelief, but instead she surprises him. “Did you want him to?” she asks quietly.

“Excuse me? I believe I was attempting to ensure the safe escape of you and your offspring.”

“I know – I know that,” Chloe says. She seems to hesitate over her next words, visibly frustrated with herself. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not explaining myself well.”

“Not particularly, no,” he says. “We’ll count ourselves lucky you interrogate murder suspects with a good degree more clarity.”

“Do you know what suicide by cop is?” she asks, and the penny drops. He’d thought they had moved past the events leading up to Amenadiel removing him bodily from Lux, the fatal bullet fired by one of her colleagues mere inches from his heart, but apparently not.

“Let me explain--.”

“You threatened a police officer with a weapon you and I both know you didn’t have. You wanted him to shoot you,” she presses. “Can you explain that?”

Linda refers to the incident as ‘rock bottom. Lucifer refers to it as ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back.’ It has featured heavily in his sessions with the good Doctor in the week since. She says that betrayal is a powerful motivator. He thinks that she doesn’t know the half of it – these humans have devised a crueler punishment than anything he could have dreamed up. Furthermore, they carry on in spite of the risks! Chloe has been betrayed by Dan, by Malcolm, by the brothers in arms who turned her back on her after Palmetto – which she was _right_ about – and yet here she stands before him, willing to trust again.

“Detective tell me, what do you desire?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Indulge me,” he says, flashing a smile.

“We’re back to your party trick again?”

“The trick doesn’t work on you, it’s a genuine question this time.”

“It isn’t any one thing, Lucifer. You can’t boil down a person’s deepest secrets down to a singular item, it’s not as simple as that.”

“Well, _you_ can’t,” he grumbles.

She snorts, turning away to sip at her scotch. He doesn’t yet understand why the Detective is immune to his charms but he rather prefers it this way. He earns each answer he gets, works hard for each piece of the puzzle that makes up Chloe Decker.

“I want Trixie to become the first zookeeper on Mars. I want my mother to make peace with the end of her acting career and stop trying to relive the heyday through her children and grandchildren. I want Dan to stop punishing himself for things he has no control over. I want my friend Lucifer to understand that while I have a responsibility to act when there is a body on the floor, I never doubted him.”

“None of those were actually about you,” he points out.

“At this point in time, I don’t desire anything for myself.”

Chloe could teach Amenadiel something about the art of self-sacrificing, he thinks. He leans back to examine the outline of her shoulders and curvature of her back, half expecting to see the two tell-tale bumps of folded wings.

“I did not want to die,” he says. She has offered something of herself in good faith and his concept of fairness is rooted in tit-for-tat, in an eye for an eye; both are revenge idioms but they apply to his growing concept of friendship equally as well.

He closes his eyes and is back in Hell, a bloodstained shirt stuck to his side and a hunk of warm metal lodged in his spleen. A shudder runs down his spine before a warm arm wraps itself around his. Chloe leans further into him, her head resting on his shoulder. He opens his eyes to the reminder that he is here on Earth, caught between that which lies below and the skies above in a balance of his own making. “Must be the breeze,” he comments.

“Must be,” she agrees.

They sit like that for a long moment, the steady beat of her heart a metronome of passing time. She is warm against his side, a comforting weight he must resist the urge to hold tight and protect. In this position her face is hidden to him by a curtain of blond hair which smells faintly like watermelon. He left Hell because he was tired of playing the hand dealt to him by his father: scapegoat for humanity’s sins; judge, jury, and executioner; always the villain, never the hero.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, he thinks. He left because he has yet to meet the human without flaw, without failing, without mistake. They punish themselves and they punish each other: words said in anger, promises broken, never as smart or strong or kind as they wish they were. Only some of them end up in his hands, and he wants more than anything to understand those he would not meet.

Humanity: a work in progress.

He’d have given it all up for this woman. That’s the bargain he made: his obedience in exchange for her life. A deal with the Devil is ironclad, his word bond in the bargains he makes with souls on the down and out. It’s not the route He chose in the end but it’s a path Lucifer had been willing to take.

He polishes off the last of the single malt in his glass and considers the matter. The deal would only have been valid for the duration of Chloe’s lifespan, at most he would have given up a few decades of life on Earth in exchange for her safety. Perhaps more – there is her continued lineage to consider, both in Trixie and any children Chloe’s spawn might one day have. Lucifer would not bet against a vindictive streak in dear old Dad.

In that time Trixie would have kept a mother, the LAPD would have kept one of its finest detectives, and Earth would have kept a shining testament to all the best humanity has to offer.

It would have been worth it.


End file.
